by Alex Bobl
I didn't bother to answer. A plastic bag containing my clothes slid out of the wall into a tray underneath. I tore it open and unfolded a pair of pants and a long-sleeved T-shirt. The shoes fell onto the floor. I stuffed the packaging into a bin under the machine and got dressed as quickly as I could, then pulled the shoes on and tore out the tongues. Now they could pass for a pair of sandals. I Velcroed them, crossed the corridor and sat in the far corner with my eyes half-shut.
" Are you mute, man? D'you understand what I'm saying?"
"Fuck off," I barked back glancing at him out of the corner of my eye.
The miner stuck out a square jaw and headed for me, muscles bulging under his clothes. The man was strong but stupid, going for a stranger like a dumbass cyber trooper.
I unglued my back from the wall and spread my shoulders preparing to spring up and knock him down with a good kneeing. The old man tried to call him back. When the miner didn't stop, the old boy hurried after him, grabbed the man's hand and pulled him back to the gate. I could hear him whisper that I was trouble, that he'd seen the implant scars on my back which was a sure sign I was an FSA man and my body language betrayed FSA training, too, so the miner should leave me well alone. Even better, he whispered, wait for the other inmates to arrive and tell them about me.
The old man turned to look at me. Our eyes met. He shut up and I leaned back against the wall. The old guy had an eye for that sort of thing. He'd been right about my modules and training. But he'd got the crux of the matter wrong as I had nothing to do with the FSA whatsoever. But who was I to explain that my implants had been of the Army type? Only an experienced neurotech could tell the difference.
Now I had to keep my eyes open. If the miner and the old guy shared their suspicions with the rest, I'd never make it to the Continent. The moment I stepped onto the ferry, I'd be dead meat. They could even try and take me out while still on the pier. That way, I'd never even have a chance to become a local. A Pangean deportee.
They started whispering again, softly this time, so I couldn't hear a word.
The mind check door opened letting out the second Asian. Wonder if he knew about his predecessor's implant? They could be accomplices. Not that the base commander cared. His job was shipping, not investigating: sending convoys both ways, from the Kola Peninsula to Pangea and back. No, that wasn’t all: the commander wasn't supposed to allow new technologies to leak onto the Continent. And he had a well-equipped garrison and weaponry to help him do just that.
A clothes bag slid into the tray by the door. The Chinese took it, cool as a cucumber, tore the shrink film and started dressing. Before he could pull up his pants, another inmate cleared the lock. In half a minute, yet another one came out. The transfer was under way. In just over an hour, the two-hundred-strong gang would be ready for shipping.
The Chinese got dressed and crouched by the exit staring at the floor. I looked up. The ceiling sported the Fort's colors: two bolts of lightning crossed under a two-headed eagle.
Then I heard a quiet pop. My ears started hurting as if the air pressure in the room had dropped. Startled, I looked around. Neither the Chinese nor the others showed any signs of discomfort - in fact, they didn't appear to have noticed anything at all. My head, however, started hissing and crackling. What the hell was going on?
The back of my head ached in the recently healed hole which had once housed the memory chip. A quiet hiss again, then a woman's indifferent voice sounded inside my head,
Pangea: a continent lying along the equator. Is bounded by the ocean. The length of coastline, over thirty thousand kilometers. Status: an inland prison. No natural resources discovered. The climate...
My ears popped. The voice distanced itself but didn't disappear completely, reciting information on the Continent's climate, mountain ranges, rivers, plains, plateaus and settlements. I remembered a lot of the data from my army school days.
When the voice abated, I opened my eyes, confused. The lock corridor was now filled with people. Most had dressed and sat by the walls; some talked. Foreigners stuck together closer to the mind check exit. A few men by the gate surrounded the miner and the old man. They argued casting occasional glances in my direction.
I rubbed my forehead and winced. My head was booming. I had to concentrate. I was Mark Posner - Private Posner, sentenced to life in exile for murdering a Federal Security agent. I'd been tried and sentenced by the military tribunal, then undergone an agonizing surgery as they'd removed my combat implants. They'd transferred me with the rest to the Kola Peninsula jumpgate - and there I was at the Pangean base, a.k.a. the Fort, that occupied a rocky island not far from the mainland, a.k.a. Pangea Anomalis - the only body of land amid the ocean that covers this world's entire surface.
That was all fine and dandy, but what was the information software doing in my head in the first place? This wasn't an implant - this was a basic program that someone had bothered to neuron-zip and which had now unzipped in my brain all by itself. You would think I'd know, wouldn't you? How could you install a piece of software into a man's head without him knowing, anyway? After the tribunal, they hadn't had the opportunity: it required sedation, and I... wait a second... when those military surgeons...
A voice put an end to my rationalizing. The old boy, the miner and a couple of bystanders stopped arguing.
'Hey there, buddy," the miner headed for me.
I stood up and, keeping an eye on him, walked toward the foreigners clustering nearby. Another man joined the miner: middle-aged with sunken cheeks and a sallow, unhealthy complexion.
"Wait up," he said in a low voice and rubbed his pointy chin. "We need to talk."
I backed off and cast a glance around. No one seemed to sneak up on me from behind. The sallow-faced man fixed his calm gaze on me while the miner stuck out his chin, menace in his glare. Behind them stood the old man and three more guys, fit and tall, all three younger than myself, square-shouldered like new recruits on parade. And their faces... but of course! They had to be clones! A custom-hatched brood: apparently, the mining foreman had donated his sample to sequester and force-grow apprentice triplets for himself. Force-grown clones looked at a lifespan of thirty years at best; wonder what the foreman and his brood had done to justify a Pangean exile? They must have protested by demanding better wages and working conditions. Dangerous thing to do in Russia these days. Ever since the new president had come to power after the Civil War, he'd been hunting down rioters and separatists. With Army support, he'd created the Federal Security Agency, banned trade unions and dissolved rival political parties. Any kind of protest could be qualified under the new Threat To The State law and the protester himself sentenced to life in exile, all thanks to Pangea whose discovery had solved the prison overcrowding problem.
The only known portal to Pangea was on the Kola Peninsula which had prompted a commercial approach as Russia started accepting convicts from other countries. The rapidly depleting oil supplies together with a chain of world crises had triggered a wave of riots and civil wars in virtually every country on the globe, filling foreign prisons to the roofs with unhappy undesirables.
I hesitated, unsure whether striking up a conversation with them was a healthy thing to do. I could wait for the line-up call or just blend in with the crowd.
"I think I know who you are," the man said. "But I'm not a hundred percent sure."
The day seemed to be rich in surprises.
"If I could have a look at your back, that would eliminate many questions," he added.
"Negative," I decided to bid for time until the line-up call. "Any more suggestions?"
"None."
"Think well."
The sallow-faced man gave me a vaguely guilty look. "Then you're toast."
The miner and two of the clones were an easy job: they stood too close to each other leaving themselves little space to maneuver. The others could take a bit of time but overall, I should meet the combat training standards. But what would I gain - getting sent to t
he cooler?
That was one place I shouldn't be in. If I picked the fight, I'd give FSA agents the perfect excuse to lock me up and take me out at their leisure.
"Pointless dragging it out," the sallow face said. "We're attracting attention. You don't need it."
He rubbed his pale sunken cheek and added,
"Fighting is no good, either."
"Know your implants?"
He shrugged. On brief reflection, I said, "Back off."
I walked to the gate, all the time knowing this wasn't the best alternative, but I had no other option. I turned to the clones and the old man, "Gather around. We don't need the others to gawk."
When they shielded me from unwanted stares, I pulled the T-shirt up and glanced back at the man. "Well?"
"I told you, didn't I?" the old man glared at me. "Look at all them scars!"
Sallow face raised his hand, silencing him. Then he came closer as did the miner. Cold fingers touched my back and shoulder blade points and traced my spine down to the small of my back.
"You can get dressed... Private."
I turned to him straightening my T-shirt and stated, "You're a neurotech."
"So he's not an-" the old man stopped short.
"No," sallow face offered me his hand. "I'm Wladas Chabrov. Chartered neurotech."
I paused, then shook his hand. "I'm Mark."
Wladas nodded. No words needed: only chartered specialists had access to the military. He could see at once the placement and purpose of my implants. The miner, however, took time to take it in.
"Name, rank, sentence?" he asked me like the mind check operator.
"Quiet, Petro!" the neurotech mouthed.
I glanced at the faces surrounding me. The clones watched me, still uptight. The old man fidgeted, his wrinkly hands trembling.
"Relax, Misha," Wladas touched the old man's shoulder and went on in a quiet voice, "Everyone, relax. Mark could have killed us all here in his own sweet time. With or without implants, his combat potential is high enough. I'd say, a couple units? Two point five, maybe?"
His words fell on deaf ears as our professional mumbo jumbo meant nothing to lay people.
"Allow me to translate," I said. "Combat potential is what we call a soldier's qualification levels. All of you put together might average two combat units. Not even. My potential equals three combat units. Four, with implants installed."
As I said it, I realized that Wladas had just given me another check. FSA agents used a different qualification system. Had I been one of them, I'd have explained it differently.
His mouth twitched suppressing a sneer.
"What makes you stick together?" I asked.
They ordered us to line up. The crowd began to fall into ranks, quickly and efficiently this time. The miner, the neurotech and myself were in the first file, followed by the triplets. One of them shouldered away the Chinese who tried to wriggle in with us.
"He's weird," Wladas said.
"Yeah," I watched as the Asian took his place in the third file next to old Misha. "His buddy has croaked in the air lock. Maybe not his buddy. They could've had nothing to do with each other."
"I saw it."
"So what do you think?"
"Nothing," Wladas shrugged. "No one can smuggle an implant to Pangea. The Asians tailgated you through the disinfection corridor like you had honey on your ass. One definitely did. The other could just be hanging around for all we know. We even tried to pick a fight with them - no way," he rubbed his cheek. "They didn't buy it. And you were deaf to the world, you! Schlepping along like a cyber trooper."
Aha. So they'd kept an eye on me. Tried to get into a fight. Now what would they need me for? Or - why did he need me?
"You didn't answer my question," I glanced back at the triplets. Their glares were lasering a hole in my head.
"They're Petro's clones," Wladas whispered.
"I've worked that out. Are they miners?"
"They are. I helped them adapt after implant removal on the way here."
It made sense. A certified neurotech meets a few fellow convicts in transit. He helps them. The tribulations of trial and prison followed by deportation can be too much even for a specially trained man. Some clam up, others seek contact hoping for some support or try to secure a place in the prison hierarchy. If you looked around you could see that the crowd consisted of smaller affinity groups. They tried to stick together knowing they had to survive the ultimate tribulation: life on Pangea. The old man didn't look as if he belonged in Wladas' group, but I left it till later.
"Why did you follow me?" I asked. Their attention worried me a lot. First the Chinese exploded in the air lock, then the mind block freeze, followed by the software in my head. I couldn't help connecting the morning's events looking for a trend and an explanation.
"It was Misha. He's a political prisoner, been rioting against the system. He pointed you out. His idea was, you were an FSA agent. Planted by the Feds to stir the shit. We meant to check you out in the corridor but couldn't. The Asians were constantly in our way."
"Which was-?"
"They just didn't let us close. Like they were covering you or something."
I didn't have time to think it over. The electric motors whirred within the walls pulling the doors in front of us open. The white-hot midday sun hit our eyes. I shielded my face with my hand and squinted at the thin strip of rocky land past the gate. Beyond it, the surf washed against the shore driving turquoise waves onto the rocks. The sky far overhead was clear and equally turquoise. The wind smelled of brine as it splattered me in the face. The ocean lay before me. Far beyond, rose the shores of Pangea.
Chapter Two
The Ferry Boat
"Forward march!" bawled from our right.
Four Feds guarded the exit. They wore heavy Centurion suits with integrated exoskeletons and jetpacks on their backs. The men held combined weapon systems. Diodes gleamed on their television sight units mounted on the barrel housing, ready for action. The red dot of a laser sight slid across my chest and jumped onto Wladas. I could almost see target markers flash as the ballistic calculators sent their data back to the guards' helmets, and nearly ducked aside to escape the estimated field of fire. I put out one leg and swayed to my left.
"Keep in line!" the nearest guard barked.
I stepped back cursing my army instincts. A Fed with corporal's insignia walked in front. On his shoulder I could see two dark stripes covered with some strange substance. It emitted a colored light when seen through an infrared device: same as the army friend-or-foe system. The other three stayed put but didn't lower their weapons.
The corporal led us to the pier. The sun was at its zenith - and it wasn't our Earth sun, either, but a blinding ball of fire, scaringly larger and whiter than the one we're all used to.
The tall L-shaped pier projected a good fifty meters into the sea. There, safe from the bulging waves, was moored the ancient hulk of a ferry boat. The ocean breathed fresh and vital. This wasn't the continent yet: there, the further you were from the sea, the harder it was to breathe. The desert air tasted dry and bitter, and the swamps left a sweet and sticky aftertaste of toxic vapors...
I got out of step, then realized that my brain had soaked up the information from the software unpacking in my head. I'd never been to Pangea before and couldn't have known any of those desert and swamp things.
I relaxed and marched on with the other inmates. I licked my salty lips, took a deep breath and shielded my face from the sun. Far beyond, several miles away from the base, the Continent Anomalous stretched out its brown southern shore.
The continent non-existent on Earth, one that had come to life during a daring scientific experiment. It had been nearly forty years since Boris Neumann, the then-emerging prodigy of military physics, had carried out trials of a new type of non-lethal weapon. Supposedly non-lethal, that is. His electronic bomb was designed to scorch soldiers' implants which was why the Feds only equipped their special force
s' men with them. From what I heard, these days the Feds tended to experiment with chemicals to see if they could affect the human brain - so that they could abandon neuromodules altogether. Anyway, what had happened was that they'd exploded an electronic bomb at their Kola Peninsula test site. But its air blast emitters, instead of targeting the enemy's simulation command center complete with working communications system and a tracking station, had born down into nothing creating a wormway that led to Pangea Anomalis.
I'd no idea why Neumann had dubbed it so. Never asked myself why. I'd heard, of course, that Pangea was the name given to the ancient protocontinent that had broken apart creating the Earth's continents as we knew them. Only the Earth's Pangea had been enormous, and Pangea Anomalis was half the size of Australia although its wild life looked similar to that on Earth.
Pangean tigers live in prides hunting not by night but during daylight, the Information's voice resounded in my head. I kept walking trying not to betray the fact that I had an illegal piece of software working in my head. The Information kept going on about the tigers: apparently, if you intruded into their territories, they would hunt you down and kill you. My brain was soaking up the data. My head boomed, blood pulsating in my temples and sending a hammering pain to the back of my neck.
Then, blurred and unstable at first, a map came into my mental view.
Sketchy but clear, it collided with reality and hindered my perceptions. I stumbled, causing the corporal to swing around. His weapon system's barrel jerked toward me.
"Keep in line!" I heard from under the mirrored visor.
Finally, the map faded away. I gave a sigh of relief. The corporal led the group onto the pier and ordered us to stop, then walked down the gangway onto the ferry's lower deck. It was barred all around and formed a large cage slightly rocking with the waves. The corporal crossed the cage inside, looked around, then headed back and started climbing the steep stairs that lead to the captain's bridge.
The ferry was quite big - bulky and squat - with spots of rust here and there. Two sailors stood aft, wearing light-colored canvas shorts and orange safety vests. Positioning themselves under the arm of the crane, they argued with a third crew member overhead who was tugging at the levers of the hoist trying to land a rusty ten-ton container onto the slipway.
